10 alarm bells that tell you something about your commercial strategy

Every day we speak to entrepreneurs who are busy growing their business. Our dream is to help them with that growth with professional and effective marketing – and that starts with very good listening. As a result, we have developed a radar for scary statements that indicate that there may be some challenges in your commercial strategy.
Djoea van Zanten tells you in this blog what those statements are and what you can then do with them.

Do you recognize these alarm bells?

Do you hear one of the following sentences regularly from your team members or even yourself? If so, there is a good chance that there is room for improvement in the approach to your marketing strategy.

1. “We have to take time to go through this thoroughly again.” That will never happen.
2. “We have to deliver a new article again.” This is clearly not a content strategy or a content planning.
3. “We have to go back to basics.” Nobody knows where the basics are, how can you go back to them?
4. “In principle, all companies are welcome as customers.” A target group has never been chosen.
5. “When I look at myself, I’m not online all day either.” You are also not networking all day, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.
6. “We have some irons in the fire.” There are no quantified leads and opportunities.
7. “We are too busy for new business.” Seriously? What about your growth ambitions?
8. “What if we were going to advertise on Google?” Without a good strategy, it will cost a lot of money.
9. “You know what to do, just be at the top of Google.” Good idea. But there are also some other entrepreneurs who have thought of that.
10. “We need something with social media.” Ouch!

Do you recognize any of them? I am sure you do. But now that you recognise this, it is important to do act on it.

Create an overview

Take some time – it’s going to be worth it! – and list all your commercial activities, channels and platforms.
From your website, your blog and your twitter account to your email marketing, your LinkedIn account and your CRM system.
Place your objective at the top of the list. You can then see whether your activities, channels and platforms actually contribute to that objective.

Imagine: your goal is to attract new customers.

Then take a look at each channel, platform and activity to see whether it actually contributes to attracting new customers or whether you mainly serve existing customers. Does it focus on new business? Great, put a plus next to it. If it doesn’t, then it is worth a minus.

Never change a winning team or time for a new marketing plan?
Once you have gone through your list, you will see at a glance which of the things you do contribute the most to your goal. Is that the case? Then don’t change a winning team. Keep going like this.
But do you see very few pluses? Then the alarm bells have done their job and it might be time to take a good look at your marketing plan.

Curious?

Do you want to know more about how you can grow with professional and effective marketing? Come to our free Masterclass “More customers? You must do this!